Watch with Mother
It was the first BBC television series aimed specifically at pre-school children, a development of BBC radio's equivalent Listen with Mother. The title was chosen to deflect fears that television might become a nursemaid to children and encourage bad mothering.
Quick Facts
- Runtime
- 15 minutes
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Language
- English
- Network
- BBC1
- First aired
- 1952
- Last aired
- 1978, 26 years
Facts from the source article.
Show cycles
That September, the lineup expanded to three afternoons a week with the addition of Rag, Tag and Bobtail. By September 1955, the classic five-show cycle was complete when The Woodentops debuted. Each day at 1:30 pm, the schedule ran: Picture Book on Mondays (from 1955), Andy Pandy on Tuesdays, Flower Pot Men on Wednesdays, Rag, Tag and Bobtail on Thursdays, and The Woodentops on Fridays (from 1955). All five shows were filmed in black-and-white, with very few episodes each—typically no more than 26 per series. Because each show aired only once a week, that was enough for a six-month run. The BBC Children's department operated on a tiny budget, so the goal was cheap programming: a set of films that could be endlessly repeated, usually in six-month cycles, for a pre-school audience that wasn't demanding.
After 1978 – Name change and later developments {{anchor|see-saw}}
During the early 2000s, stop-motion remakes of Andy Pandy and The Flower Pot Men (retitled Bill and Ben) appeared on CBeebies.
More in 1950s British Children's Television Series
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